Seven Years
by GreenEggsAndGraham
Summary: A fluffy ficlet from Jane's POV about her love for a certain Medical Examiner.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey readers! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate the holiday! I got a sudden burst of inspiration and I ran with it. It's pure fluff from Jane's POV. **

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It happened the way it always does. _Torturously _slowly and then all at once. I noticed the feelings right away but figured that it was just how female friendships were, and how could I know the difference, really, if I'd never had a female friend before?

I'd noticed it when Maura had called me gorgeous for the first time. The way my heart skipped a beat to have those beautiful hazel eyes assessing me in that dress. When I realized she looked at me like that no matter what I was wearing; as if I were the beautiful one.

I felt it grow and change with every joke about how we were LLBFFs.

"Are we having a sleepover or is this your way of saying you're attracted to me?" I asked and noticed that Maura had simply laughed in lieu of response and had been surprised to find myself hoping that Maura hadn't answered so she didn't have to lie. I'd been too nervous to ask and laughed at the oddity of the thought.

I noticed it with every click of Maura's heels as she walked into the bullpen. I still smile at the sound every time I hear it. I found myself looking forward to seeing what ridiculous outfit Maura had chosen to wear to a crime scene. I thought at first that when my eyes lingered over the blonde's thighs or chest that I was simply noticing the cut of the outfit from an aesthetic perspective, but as time wore on, I realized that I was appreciating Maura, what Maura looked like in the clothes and not the clothes themselves. Friends could do that, right?

I would find my mind going blank when Maura would look at me with that smile. The one where her dimples would show and her hazel eyes would sparkle. The one that Maura only wore while she was looking at me. I wondered if I had a special smile for her, too. She deserved it if anyone did. My heart still flutters every time she throws her head back with a laugh and my stomach seems to writhe with happiness knowing that I'm one of the few people who can make her laugh like that.

We had very different upbringings but that's amazing for us. Every day we show each other new things. I convince her to partake in carpool karaoke, water gun fights with my brothers, baseball. She convinces me to go to art galleries and learn about the beauty of what humans can do. She shows me she cares in ways that blow me away and I do the same.

We're constantly challenging each other and growing and learning together, just as it should be. I noticed, after years, how much she meant to me, how I wanted to see her 'Jane' smile every day and as often as possible. I realized how I wanted to appreciate what she looked like both in and out of her fashionable outfits. I realized, so suddenly that I had to stop walking in the middle of a busy Boston street beside her, that I loved her. That I loved her more intensely than I'd ever thought possible and that I yearned for her with every particle of my being.

"Jane?" Maura turned to look at me in confusion at my sudden lack of motion. I had to laugh. I looked down at her and smiled at her as I shook my head at myself for not realizing sooner that I was deeply, madly, desperately in love with this smart, beautiful, goof of a woman.

"Maura," was all I needed to say for her to understand. She turned to face me fully and grinned up at me with that smile, _God, _that smile, and I lifted a hand to caress the side of her cheek and tuck her soft, loose curls behind her ear and suddenly, we were both leaning in.

It took me a day to fall in love with this woman and it took me seven years to realize it. It took me a single moment of walking through Boston to recognize what it all meant, and right before our lips touched I loved her even more for her patience. Seven years is a long time to wait for me. Seven years' worth of longing was poured into that first kiss. Seven years of smiles, of the Christmases already spent together. Seven years of friendship. Seven years of calling Bass a turtle just to get a rise out of her. Seven years of inside jokes and teasing and laughing together. It took seven entire years for me to realize that she was my person. Seven years; and I would spend the rest of my life repaying her for her patience, for her grace. I poured all of this into the long kiss we shared in the middle of the city we both loved so much and I thought as I pulled away from her that seven years with this woman wasn't nearly long enough.

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**Happy Holigays, my friends. **


	2. Seven More

**Ask and you shall receive! I got a request to continue this with a short from Maura's POV. I'm up to writing anything you guys like! It helps me hone my skills and honestly, I love doing it. Specific shoutout to Pink Lady and MarCor3 for inspiring me to continue and giving me ideas! Everyone who takes the time to review my work has a special place in my heart. It means more than I can say that people seem to be enjoying my stuff! I love y'all!**

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I have always been a patient woman. Docile has often been used to describe me. Docile could not be further from an accurate description, though, when it comes to my feelings for Jane. The force of my feelings for that brilliant woman is far from gentle. Every fiber of my being craves her.

From the moment I met her, well, from the _second _moment I met her, I knew that she was someone I should cherish. We didn't get off on the right foot when I had assumed she was a prostitute, but once she was transferred to homicide and came down to the morgue to introduce herself to me, I couldn't help but enjoy her company. She'd smiled guiltily and scratched the back of her head with one hand while offering me the other. I shook it suspiciously as I remembered how she'd reacted the first time we met, but I soon found myself laughing at a joke she'd made to break the tension.

She walked into my morgue and changed all the colours in the world for me. She brightened every darkness I'd ever felt with the shine in her eyes. She warmed me with her presence and every part of me that I'd worked so hard to turn to ice began to thaw. In a moment she showed me how caring strangers could be and I found myself longing to get to know her, to befriend her, to cherish her.

She seemed to break through the fortress of walls I'd built over the years to protect my heart, and then make herself perfectly comfortable in the rubble as I struggled to contain how I felt for her. While I easily kept everyone else at bay, she seemed to seamlessly ease herself into my life, my house, my routines, and my heart.

She amazed me every day with her complexities. She still does. I'm in awe of how such a force of a woman can be so gentle with me. I love how hard she works at her job. I love that she can terrify grown men and then turn around and be so loving, so caring with the people she is fiercely loyal to. I love that she uses humour as a defense mechanism because she doesn't always know how to show people how much she loves them. I have that issue too. I love when she teases me; it's proof of how much she cares. She loves when I 'google-mouth' at her about things pertaining to her, because she understands that it's how I show that I care about her, too.

I'd quickly analyzed her behavior around me and determined that she was attracted to me, too, but I also assessed that she was unaware of that fact. Every time she would press her hand to the small of my back to guide me somewhere, my heart would flutter. It still does. I would catch her admiring how my clothes fit me, I still often do. I longed to point it out to her, to tell her what it all meant, but I'd learned quickly that she liked to figure things out on her own. So, I decided to wait for her to solve the case. Sunday dinners and holidays with her family were enough to keep me going. Weeknight takeout and movies while we cuddled on the couch was enough to tide me over until she cracked the code. There was no doubt in my mind that she would figure it out eventually; she wasn't the best detective in Boston for nothing.

I found her need to joke about us as a couple to be amusing; she didn't seem to notice how jealous she got when other men and women would hit on me. She didn't seem to notice how she held open doors for me or strategically placed herself between me and any other people she subconsciously deemed to be a threat to her claim over me. I easily analyzed the mating behaviour but knew she would likely not appreciate it if I pointed it out. She hadn't reacted positively when I pointed out her hair twisting, and she had reacted even more negatively when we encountered Giovanni.

"Yeah, well you don't want to sleep with me," I remember her sassing me after a particularly awkward encounter with her childhood friend. I assessed her for a moment and considered telling her the truth, that I did want to sleep with her, and only her, for the rest of my life, but the fear on her face as she asked "_do you?_" proved that she wasn't ready, and so I decided to wait. I had to glance down and make sure the cut of my dress was high enough for me to lie.

Neither of us is especially adept at communicating about our emotions or feelings, but it seems that we always know what the other is thinking; what the other needs. The bond we share is unspoken in its understanding. We communicate our emotions mostly through actions in lieu of words; a fact for which I am grateful. She seems to be able to read me like a book, as the saying goes. I'm still amazed that it took her seven years to realize that I was hopelessly in love with her. I hadn't really gone out of my way to try to hide it, and though I hadn't outright said it either, her ability to read people so well seemed to go out the metaphorical window when it came to reading herself.

It took a day. One crack of her classic Rizzoli smile after a joke and I was gone. Honestly, I tried very hard to control the fluttering I felt in my chest. I reasoned with myself for hours on countless occasions that it was simply chemicals and endorphins running through my veins. Tachycardia can be caused by many things, after all, so I tried to convince myself that it happening exclusively around Jane was not a correlation. I tried so hard, time and time again, to science my way out of my feelings for her, but they continued to grow anyway.

She has a way of commanding every room she walks into and it takes my breath away. She can walk onto a crime scene and suddenly seem to own the entire area. She can walk into a room full of sad people and by the time she leaves, have everyone laughing. She walked into the coldness of my life and it was like I felt the sun's rays dance on my face for the first time. I wanted to bask in the glow of her light.

It took her seven years to kiss me, seven years to finally analyze our dynamic and come to the only reasonable conclusion. Although I had to spend countless nights laying sleeplessly, wondering how much longer it would take, it was worth the wait. For seven years I had to attempt to keep my heartbeat under control when she smiled at me. I tried to keep my breathing steady and tried to hide my blush when she would do something particularly thoughtful. It took seven years of me trying to dull the yearning in my heart for her to admit how she felt, but as she kissed me in the middle of the city that we both loved so much, I thought about all the years of waiting I had done and knew for certain that I would easily wait for seven more. For her, I would wait a lifetime.

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**I think that's it for this story. I have a few more in the works though! I'm currently entertaining three separate long stories and several one-shots, so if you enjoy my writing style, keep your eyes peeled. I love Rizzles with my entire heart. If you have recommendations of shows with good potential for lady-shipping, feel free to hit up my inbox because I have a few weeks off and my tiny gay heart craves the representation! -JJ**


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